Ashraf Abu-Seida

AbstractBackground: Manual hyperinflation and expiratory rib cage compression are methods of chest physiotherapy. They
are commonly applied but their value and their early utilization managing mechanically ventilated remain questionable.
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of manual hyperinflation with rib cage compression and
endotracheal suctioning on arterial blood gas parameters in mechanically ventilated patients.
Results: Seventy mechanically ventilated patients at a teaching hospital in Egypt were assigned to the clinical trial
study. The age of more than half of the studied samples ranged between 60 and 69 years with a mean age of 53.64 ±
16.44 years. Initially, the ABG parameters were assessed. Then, the patients were exposed to manual hyperinflation for
5 min and 20 min external expiratory chest compression followed by endotracheal suctioning. Later, ABG parameters
were assessed again and compared to the initial one. The findings revealed significant differences in ABG parameters
before and after completion of MHI and ERCC and ETT suctioning in relation to PaO2
(t = 3.892) and SaO2
(t= 5.904).
Also, it showed significant improvement in PaO2
and SaO2
after the completion of interventions, while no significant
differences were found in other ABG parameters. This study was registered retrospectively with an ISRCTN number
39983 on 5/6/2021.
Conclusion: Applying manual hyperinflation with rib cage compression and endotracheal suctioning improved
mainly the arterial oxygenation parameters in mechanically ventilated patients despite no significant changes
observed in other ABG parameters.

Reinforced concrete (RC) bridge decks suffer from cracking damages caused by traffic loading and environmental-related defects, such as the alkali-silica reaction (ASR). These require inspections involving measuring crack width and density followed by essential maintenance and repair works, however, there are no signs for fatigue failure. In this study, the out-of-plane shear deformations which cause small delaminations (pits) along surface cracks are proposed as an early indicator for fatigue failure. Thus, un-damaged and ASR-damaged RC deck slabs are tested under moving wheel loading and, using image-recognition for surface cracks detection, the pits along surface cracks are captured using an artificial intelligence (AI) model. The results show that, while both crack and pit density increase over the fatigue life of un-damaged slabs, there is an earlier sudden increase in pit density. In the case of the ASR-damaged slab, surface cracking is almost constant over the fatigue life until a sudden increase just prior to failure. Pit density, however, increases over the fatigue life with an earlier rapid increase before failure. The density of pits along cracks would be, therefore, a significantly earlier indicator of fatigue failure than crack density, offering the potential for more efficient and automatable bridge inspections.

Two stability-indicating chromatographic methods have been established and validated for concurrent determination of probenecid (PRO), colchicine (COL) along with the degradation product of colchicine (COL deg). PRO and COL were exposed to a stress stability study, which includes acidic, alkaline, oxidative, photolytic and thermal degradations. Chromatographic methods included the use of thin layer chromatography (TLC-densitometry) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In the first method, separation was achieved by using aluminum TLC plates that were precoated with silica gel G.F254 as the stationary phase and ethyl acetate–methanol–33%ammonia (8:1:1, by volume) as a mobile phase. The obtained chromatograms were scanned at 254 nm. The second method was based on HPLC using a RP- C18 column with isocratic elution. Good separation was obtained through a mobile phase comprised of phosphate buffer pH 5–acetonitrile (70:30, v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL min−1 and ultraviolet detection at 254 nm. Different parameters affecting efficiency of the two methods were studied accurately for optimum separation of the three cited components. The suggested methods were validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines and were applied for bulk powder and commercial tablets.

Solar radiation is an essential input in the design and operation of many engineering systems. However, access to high-resolution data (hourly or sub-hourly) is usually limited, especially in developing countries, either due to its unavailability or expensive costs. A novel data-driven approach is proposed to predict the hourly global irradiation profiles from the cheaper and more likely available records of daily global irradiation. The proposed approach is based on a prior categorization of hourly observations using the K-means clustering algorithm, followed by non-parametric function approximation using the multi-layered perceptron artificial neural network. This approach is applied to measured data (130,000 data points) at six locations in the North African Sahara, and the developed models are benchmarked against all existing parametric models in the literature. The artificial neural network-based models outperformed all existing models, with maximum and minimum coefficients of determination of 0.960 and 0.930, respectively. The non-parametric models also captured the true asymmetric profiles of hourly irradiation with enhanced distributions of the residuals. Hence, the suggested models can be used to generate synthetic hourly data for multiple applications, most notably for building energy simulations and scheduling the operation of power generation systems.

The quality of decisions in the renewable energy sector is as good as the quality of available data. This makes data quality a cornerstone in renewable energy system planning, designing, operation, and assessment. Unfortunately, such data is not always available and usually is cost-prohibitive. One solution for this issue is using the data of few representative days (RDs) instead of the full year for reduced costs of the data itself and the system simulations. A new framework is proposed in this study to distinguish these RDs based on meteorological features. The new framework represents an end-to-end pipeline, starting with measurements, data curing, feature extraction, clustering, and representative year construction. The analysis showed that increasing the number of RDs indeed improves the representativeness of the reconstructed year with disagreement indices as low as 1.041. Including system-irrelevant meteorological parameters was found to increase the disagreement index between original data and reconstructed year from 0.206 to 0.989. The proposed autoencoder feature extraction approach outperformed the conventional statistical one, especially for shallow autoencoders, where the disagreement index was reduced from 1.564 to 1.001. Finally, a brief case study of a standard solar water heating system was performed using TRNSYS v18 software to verify the proposed approach, where the absolute percentage deviation in the annual solar fraction was found to be only 0.278%. This study takes the first steps towards offering decision-makers, designers, and modelers a framework that provides high-quality and high-resolution data compatible with the elevating measurements and simulation cost.

Sleeping pods are special confined enclosures used as quiet spaces for short naps (e.g., in libraries and airports) or as cheap accommodations in metropolitan cities. This study aims to analyze the thermal environment in such pods when operating with radiant cooling panels, as potential energy saving (high-temperature cooling) systems, using a validated computational model. The results show that the pod can be maintained at category A (predicted percent dissatisfied of nearly 5%) by maintaining a high supply air temperature (25 °C), a relatively high panel temperature (19 °C), and using an untreated panel surface (emissivity of 0.7). Most of the considered operational settings showed no signs of local thermal discomfort, where the draft risk is below 10%, the radiant temperature asymmetry is lower than 10 °C, and all pod surfaces are safely touchable. Besides, no condensation risks are encountered. The cooling capacity of the panel ranges between 24.4 and 65.65 W/m2 and the radiation heat share ranges between 23.2 and 41.0%. The cooling capacity was found to increase by decreasing the panel's temperature, increasing the panel's emissivity, and increasing the supply air temperature. When switched on, the internal heat dissipation appliances increased the operative temperature by 2.6%, decreased the draft risk by 11.6%, and increased the cooling capacity by 13.9%, but the pod's environment only moved from category A to the beginning of category B.

A Green nanomaterial synthesis could be considered as an alternative bio-controller source of insect pest management as well as saving the environment. Gamma irradiation-induced silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) synthesis in an aqueous solution of irradiated polyvinyl pyrrolidone, (PVP) at ambient conditions was performed. A homogenous mixture solution consisting of (1 mmol Ag+) ions and irradiated (1% PVP) was subject to gamma rays of Co-60 at dose of 20 kGy. Concurrently, the radiolysis of water by γ-rays produced (H2, ehy and H·,OH·) that act as reducing agents and initiators for Ag0 production and PVP polymerization, respectively. The new absorption band observed at 420 nm is confirmed the formation (Ag/PVP) nanoparticles. The color of (AgNO3/PVP) solution converts from colorless to yellowish emphasizing the formation of (Ag/PVP) nanoparticles. The obtained results from X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the coexistence of Ag nanoparticles and PVP matrix. The presence of PVP influenced the shape and distribution of the uniformly dispersed Ag/PVP nanoparticles with diameter 30 ± 5 nm. Bioassay of Ag/PVP nanoparticle on Spodoptera littoralis larvae indicated that the high concentration (600 ppm) of Ag/PVP nanoparticle gave only 11.5% mortality. The interaction between S. littoralis Nucleopolyhedrosis (SpliMNPV) and Ag/PVP nanoparticle had negative correlation to be considered as antagonism. Our finding indicated that the larvicidal activity of Ag/PVP nanoparticle was too low to consider as insecticide against S. littoralis. In the present study, the novelty is reduction of SpliMNPV pathogenicity as well as increased the virus degradation in response to UV irradiation is assisted by Ag/PVP nanoparticle.

PURPOSE To calculate the overall incidence of uveal melanoma in Germany and to compare incidences in different German states. In addition, we computed the overall and cancer-specific survival rates nationwide. METHODS Incidence data for the period between 2009 and 2015, covering the entire German population, was collected through the German Center for Cancer Registry. ICD-O-3 topography codes C69.3-C69.4 and histology codes for melanoma subtypes were used to collect the incidence data. Confidence Intervals with a level of 95% (95% CI) were calculated for rates. Survival was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier. The log-rank test was used for survival comparisons. RESULTS This study comprised 3654 patients with uveal melanomas, including 467 (12.8%) with iridial and ciliary body tumors. The overall age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) was 6.41 person per million. Generally, the ASIR was higher in males than females (6.67 (95% CI 6.37-6.98) vs. 6.16 (95% CI 5.88-6.45 per million). Higher crude incidence rates were noted in the northeastern states (12.5 per million (95% CI 10.5-14.7) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) compared with the southwestern states (2.1 per million (95% CI 1.7-2.6) in Hessen). The 5-year overall survival stood at 47%, while the cancer-specific survival stood at 84%. Multivariate analysis showed that women, younger patients, and patients living in Berlin achieved significantly higher overall survival. CONCLUSION Overall ASIR of uveal melanoma in Germany indicates that the disease is more common in males and that it follows the same geographical distribution previously noted in central European countries, with the highest incidence in northern parts of Germany.

Two sensitive, selective and precise chromatographic methods have been established for concomitant quantification of ciprofloxacin HCl (CIP), fluocinolone acetonide (FLU) along with ciprofloxacin impurity A (CIP-imp A). The first method was thin-layer chromatography (TLC-densitometry) where separation was accomplished using TLC silica plates 60 G.F254 as a stationary phase and chloroform–methanol–33%ammonia (4.6:4.4:1, by volume) as a developing system. The obtained plates were scanned at 260 nm over concentration ranges of 1.0–40.0, 0.6–20.0 and 1.0–40.0 μg band−1 for CIP, FLU and CIP-imp A, respectively. The second method was based on high-performance liquid chromatography using a Zorbax ODS column (5 μm, 150 × 4.6 mm i.d.) where adequate separation was achieved through a mobile phase composed of phosphate buffer pH 3.6–acetonitrile (45:55, v/v) at flow rate 1.0 mL min−1 with ultraviolet detection at 254 nm. Linear regressions were obtained in the range of 1.0–40.0 μg mL−1 for CIP, 0.6–20.0 μg mL−1 for FLU and 1.0–40.0 μg mL−1 for CIP-imp A. The suggested methods were validated in compliance with the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines and were successfully applied for determination of CIP and FLU in bulk powder and newly marketed otic solution.

In retrograde gas condensate reservoirs, condensate blockage is a major reservoir damage problem, where liquid is dropped-out of natural gas, below dew-point pressure. Despite that most of this liquid will not produce due to not reaching the critical saturation, natural gas will be blocked by the accumulated liquid and will also not produce.This work investigates the effects of gas injection (such as methane, carbon-dioxide, and nitrogen) and steam at high temperatures on one of the Egyptian retrograde gas condensate reservoirs. Several gas injection scenarios that comprise different combination of gas injection temperature, enthalpy, injection gas types (CO2, N2, and CH4), and injection-rates were carried out.
The results indicated that all conventional and thermal gas injection scenarios do not increase the cumulative gas production more than the depletion case. The non-thermal gas injection scenarios increased the cumulative condensate production by 8.6%. However, thermal CO2 injection increased the condensate production cumulative by 28.9%.
It was observed that thermal gas injection does not vaporize condensate It was observed that thermal gas injection does not vaporize condensate more than conventional injection that have the same reservoir pressure trend. However, thermal injection mainly improves the condensate mobility. Appropriately, thermal injection in retrograde reservoirs, is mostly applicable for depleted reservoirs when the largest amount of non-producible liquid is already dropped out. Finally, this research studied executing thermal gas injection in retrograde gas condensate reservoirs, operationally, by considering the following items: carbon dioxide recovery unit, compressors, storage-tanks, anti-corrosion pipe-lines and tubing-strings, and corrosion-inhibitors along with downhole gas heaters.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) markedly contribute to morbidity and mortality of diabetic patients. Hence, this study was conducted to investigate the predictors of foot ulcers among Egyptian diabetic patients. METHODS: A case-control study was conducted among 488 diabetic patients attending the inpatient departments and outpatient clinics at the National Diabetes Institute in Egypt. A pretested data collection sheet was designed to collect and record the following: socio-demographic data, diabetic history and lifestyle characteristics, recorded comorbidities, and the results of foot examination. RESULTS: Significant positive predictors of DFUs on multivariate logistic regression analysis included presence of three or more comorbidities; two or more diabetic complications; callus; and flatfoot. Significant protective (negative) predictors were management of diabetes by diet, oral hypoglycemic drugs (OHGs), and insulin; and intact vibration sense. CONCLUSION: Significant positive predictors of DFUs on multivariate analysis were presence of three or more comorbidities, two or more diabetic complications, callus and flatfoot, while protective predictors were management of diabetes by diet, OHGs, and insulin; and intact vibration sense. Hence, close monitoring should be provided to diabetic patients with comorbidities and complications to reduce the risk of DFUs.

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In a contribution to stability profiling of the recent antidiabetic drug, omarigliptin (OMR), two stability-indicating chromatographic methods were developed and validated. Stability profiling was performed for OMR under different stress conditions as acidic, alkaline, oxidative, photolytic and thermal degradations. Structures elucidation to all formed degradation products were identified using IR and mass spectrometry. Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) were used. In TLC-densitometric method, aluminum TLC plates precoated with silica gel G.F254 were used as stationary phase along with methanol: ethyl acetate: 33% ammonia (2:8:1,v/v/v) as mobile phase. The obtained chromatograms were scanned at 254 nm over concertation range of 5–70 μg band−1 for OMR. The second chromatographic method was an HPLC one with diode array detection and RP-C18 column with isocratic elution. Mobile phase used was composed of phosphate buffer pH 3.5: acetonitrile (80, 20, v/v), delivered at flow rate of 1.0 mL min−1. Diode array detector was adjusted at 230 nm with linearity range of 15–180 μg mL−1 for OMR. Several factors affecting TLC and HPLC efficiency have been carefully studied. The developed methods were validated according to International Conference on Harmonization guidelines and successfully applied for assessment of OMR in bulk powder and tablets.

Purpose: The present study aimed to assess the effect of progressive resistive functional strength training from a plantigrade foot position on gross motor function in spastic diplegic children. Methods: Forty-six children with spastic diplegic cerebral palsy of both genders aged from seven to ten years were randomly allocated into two equal groups; control group (A) and study group (B). These groups were assigned to a designed physical therapy program. Additionally, the study group (B) received progressive resistive functional strength training in the plantigrade foot position. Treatment was conducted for two hours, for three consecutive months, three times a week. Standing and walking (Dimensions D and E) were assessed pre-and post-treatment using the Growth Motor Function Measure Scale (GMFM-66). Results: post-treatment comparison between both groups revealed that there was a significant improvement in the gross motor function of the study group compared to the control group (p<0.05). Conclusions: It can be concluded that progressive functional strength training from the plantigrade foot position was an effective program with a higher percentage of improvements in the study group compared with the control group regarding all measured variables.

In recent years, few reports suggest that the oxidative process may be present in hypothyroid patients; however, these reports were mostly contradictory and with very few data regarding canine patients. So, this investigation was designed to study oxidative stress alterations in both hypothyroid and euthyroid dogs. The study was conducted on thirteen dogs (six hypothyroid dogs and seven euthyroid dogs) with an age range of 4–7 years. Establishing hypothyroidism was based on clinical signs and results of thyroid hormones evaluation. Serum samples were taken from each animal for evaluation of free T4 (fT4), total T4 (TT4), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), cholesterol, triglycerides, ALP, malondialdehyde (MDA), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and comparison between euthyroid data and hypothyroid data was made. There was a decrease in fT4 and TT4 in hypothyroid patients along with elevation in TSH, cholesterol, triglycerides, and ALP. Oxidative biomarkers showed significant (P ≤ 0.05) elevation in both MDA and TAC in the hypothyroid dog. Canine hypothyroidism is associated with oxidative stress manifested with elevation in MDA and TAC; this process is exasperated by hyperlipidemia.

This chapter explains the optimum economic using the precious, costly and nonrenewable desert ground water in different sectors. Egypt is a country suffering from water scarcity where the water share per capita/year does not exceed 600 m, and the total water shortage reached 42 billion cubic meter/year in year 2018. Thus any new discovered ground water especially deep or spring ones will need economic scientific thinking and wise decision for its uses. The first logical choice for the new ground water should be to reduce the current water gap; but in case of adaptation with this water scarcity; the second choice will be to deliver it into the high income sectors such as hotels, tourisms, industry, and finally agriculture sectors. The municipal and domestic sectors will be also in the focus to meet the demands of the new settlements for the next generation. The least economically feasible choice of using the valuable ground water is to use it in agriculture sectors with its low income, where the return back of using unit of water in industrial sector reached tenfold than agricultural sector. Sometime, the lack of enough foreign currency needed to imports the needed essential food obliged the country to uses desert ground water in producing food. Ground water in Egyptian desert is mostly nonrenewable, deep and costly. The uses of delta and valley renewable shallow ground water in irrigates alluvial soils are completely different than using the desert deep and costly and nonrenewable ground water in cultivates desert lands. The feasibility of using desert ground water in agriculture and growing of agronomy crops, fruit trees and vegetable crops is a waste of a valuable and costly natural resource. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt have had negative results for exploiting the ground water in greening desert by planting wheat, barely, forage, vegetables, and fruit crops. In Egypt, most of ground water wells in Cairo-Alexandria desert road farms are exploited and be salinized. Officially, agriculture sectors consumes 62.5 BCM/yr, and shares in Egyptian GDP by only 11.9%, while the industrial sector, consume a little amount of water as low as 2.4 BCM/yr but shares in GDP by 17.1. According to the deep Egyptian water gap, and the valuable of desert water, the uses of ground water in agriculture extension (if necessarily) should be in the north of Egypt where the temperature is moderate, winter rains, high humidity with low water consumptive use. The different between the temperature in the North and South Egypt reached 15 centigrade especially in the summer season. Historically all the successes project of desert reclamation located in North Egypt and no any one single success project locates in warm, dry and low humidity South Egypt. In Egypt’s desert, the water consumptive use in the warm and dry Upper Egypt is almost double of those in the temperate humid North of Egypt with limited valid of crop types that can be cultivated. Organic agriculture, cash crops, export crops and green house agriculture should be considered as a good investment in desert agriculture using ground water in irrigation to maximize both of net profit and the return back of unite of water.

Efficient procedures have been developed for the synthesis of novel series of bis(9,10-diaryl-hexahydroacridine-1,8-diones) in which the two acridine moieties were linked to aliphatic, aromatic, or heteroaromatic spacers via ether or ester linkages. The target products were obtained in good to excellent yields via a multi-component reaction of the appropriate aromatic amine, 5,5-dimethyl-1,3-cyclohexanedione, and the corresponding bis-aldehydes. The reactions were also proceeded to give the target products in good yields via a multi-component reaction of the appropriate cyclic enamines, and the corresponding bis-aldehydes under similar conditions. Bis-alkylation of the appropriate hexahydroacridine-1,8-dione with the corresponding dihalo compound in a basic medium was also proved to be an effective strategy for the synthesis of the target products. The multi-component reaction of the aromatic amine, bis-aldehydes, and barbituric acid or 1,3-dimethylbarbituric acid, instead of 5,5-dimethyl-1,3-cyclohexanedione, afforded the corresponding Knoevenagel condensation adducts in good yield and unfortunately, the expected bis-tetrahydropyrimido[4,5-b]quinolines could not be isolated.

The ever-growing interest in developing compact and more effective heat exchangers necessitates the investigation of combined passive solutions. Despite the diverse related literature, there are no studies on smooth conical tubes (convergent and divergent tubes) fitted with twisted tape inserts. This study analyzes and optimizes the absolute and relative thermal and hydraulic performances of tube heat exchangers, with and without twisted tape inserts, based on Nusselt number and friction factor, by adjusting the tube’s diameter ratio and the operational Reynolds number. A consolidated framework of computational fluid dynamics simulations, data-driven multilayered perceptron-based modeling, and gradient-free genetic dual-objective optimization is employed. The results showed that conventional straight tubes are the most favorable in terms of hydraulic performance, with a maximum friction factor of only 0.042. Convergent tubes are the most effective in terms of thermal performance, with Nusselt numbers up to 475.9. Divergent tubes do not show potentials for heat transfer enhancement unless equipped with a tape insert. Twisted tapes effectively improve the thermal performances of all system configurations but also drastically increase the friction factor. Compared to a baseline design of an empty straight tube, the thermal performance can be improved by up to 74.8%. Almost all Pareto frontier solutions belonged to convergent tubes of different configurations. The selected moderate non-dominated solution (assuming equal importance of thermal and hydraulic performances) corresponds to a Nusselt number of 402.9 and a friction factor of 0.130 for a tape-fitted convergent tube with a diameter ratio of 0.445, operating at a Reynolds number of 39,854. In terms of relative performance, the moderate solution corresponds to a Nusselt number ratio of 1.535 and a friction factor ratio of 6.157 using a tape-fitted convergent tube with a diameter ratio of 0.385, operating at a Reynolds number of 31,254. Overall, convergent tubes are recommended as a simple way for boosting the heat transfer rate and the proposed models can be used as flexible tools for selecting the operating conditions based on the designer’s preference.